Please Poll Me: ILM ballot poll #116 punk tracks1975-1984 LOBBYING AND DISCUSSION!!

Hello, hi there, and eff everything, let's do a classic-era punk tracks poll. Europe is at war, 70s-style stagflation and winter threatens us, politics is echoing the past in all the worst ways; maybe nostalgia, loving excavation of the fury of the past and some joyous rockin' out will help.

Ballots due in 3 weeks, Oct 30, midnight Seattle time.

Submit up to 50 tracks, I will assume it's ranked unless you preface with the word unranked. 20 tracks of just your favorites is fine too. I intend to roll out a top 200 if we get enough ballots. Songs recorded in the 1975-1984 years are eligible with a side poll for precursors. I will roll together any alternate versions, including Peel sessions, but feel free to note if your vote is for a particular version and I will include this info in the results.

The definition of "punk" is wide open here as far as I'm concerned, there's no metalhead style genre policing - anarchy is the byword - my suggestion is be "would this song sound good blaring out in a dank punk club" so I think Cheap Trick's Surrender and Motorhead's Ace of Spades, and maybe even Venom's Welcome to Hell would be fine. Uncontrollable Urge and Psycho Killer work, maybe not much else by those artists. Bela Lugosi's Dead or might not be as strong a choice as something like In a Flat Field, here... Bowie should probably stay in the side poll...

Side poll #1, Submit your top ten punk precursor tracks. I will collate all artists here, so all votes for Stooges songs will be combined in the initial results, to prevent them and the Velvets and NY Dolls from dominating, and help the Sonics not get too vote split. After the side poll results finish the uncollated results will be published of course. The rollout may be larger than a top 20 if ya'll take this voting seriously and most people give me a good top 10. As above, feel free to vote for oddball choices like Hasil Adkins or "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me & My Monkey". We're having fun here.

Side poll #2, EPs and mini-albums. The creative and economic anarchy of the punk era saw a breakdown of the old single vs album divide and experimentation with what a vinyl record can hold and mean. Submit your top 10 (or fewer) punk EPs or mini-lps or sub-20 minute lps, 1975-84. Any 7" with more than 2 songs counts, as well as anything that feels like a mini-lp like Slates or Stink or the first Sonic Youth record, or any punk LP with nothing but short songs on, like the first Circle Jerks.

Submit ballots to ilxpunkpoll at gmail and let's get to lobbying for underappreciated tracks!

Is there going to be a nominations sheet? Or is it open?

Mm, perhaps we should do 2 weeks of nominations first, then a week of voting? Let's decide in the next 2 days if people would prefer doing the whole nominations process, or not. I'm fine with leaving it open, I think most people voting are going to have strong opinions.

I hate the whole nominating process because it goes from "making a list" to doing homework

Word.

I understand the fear that you might want to vote for only one song each by the Clash, Misfits, the Fall, Husker Du etc. and with bands like those there are going to be a ton of different valid choices. I could collate the artists for the tracks rollout as well, that way bands like that would be assured a pretty high placement. So like in the rollout, all the votes for all Husker Du songs would be added up, whichever single song was voted for the most would be listed, and then at the end I'd publish the individual placing of all songs voted for...

Feel like being a little conservative with choices here, anything post-punk feels like it belongs in its own poll (though of course there is non-post-punk being made right up to 1985)

50 is way too big a ballot for this imo, keep it to 20 or 25 otherwise interesting choices will be drowned out by the usuals. There will be 40 Clash songs or something ghastly like that

I understand the fear that you might want to vote for only one song each by the Clash, Misfits, the Fall, Husker Du etc. and with bands like those there are going to be a ton of different valid choices. I could collate the artists for the tracks rollout as well, that way bands like that would be assured a pretty high placement. So like in the rollout, all the votes for all Husker Du songs would be added up, whichever single song was voted for the most would be listed, and then at the end I'd publish the individual placing of all songs voted for...

this is a bad idea, would essentially just turn it into an artist poll but with weird weighting from people voting for multiple tracks by the same artist.

don't get the 'homework' complaint about nominations, you can just make a list without really worrying too much about it? some people like to try to survey as much as possible but you don't have to if you don't want to

but nominations or not isn't actually that important idk

One argument I see for nominations is to get a sense of what others are considering and make the results more coherent while still giving a chance to diversity. I know that I like proto-punk and post-punk and punk-adjacent stuff more than the original wave, but I'd feel quite hesitant assembling a ballot in the dark. The discussion is often just as valuable as the results too.

that + reducing vote splitting are the main benefits yeah

i probably won't vote because i'm nowhere near familiar enough with as much of this stuff as i'd like to be & probably won't have time to put a ballot together (especially with the boundaries being set so deliberately wide) but i'm looking forward to the results

Thinking about this for 2 minutes makes you realize Wire really needs an artist poll.

There are also 20 years' worth of punk threads for nomination ideas, like this one:
Best punk single

who's gonna help me choose between Rotten To The Core and Poppycock then

50 is way too big a ballot for this imo, keep it to 20 or 25 otherwise interesting choices will be drowned out by the usuals. There will be 40 Clash songs or something ghastly like that

That's probably fair. 25, then?

Don't see how I can cut down to 25, sorry.

Start by eliminating the pseuds, then proceed to the scabs

I'm good with 50, I think it actually makes it more likely something interesting sneaks in than if we're all just doing 1 track each by 25 different artists (which is certainly what my 25-track ballot would be).

nominations list are helpful for a massive undertaking like this because there are just so many choices and choosing your favs from a list is less time-consuming than trying to remember every great punk song you’ve ever heard

Yeah 50 tracks sounds good given the broad scope of the poll.

A friend of mine compiled me a C60 called LOSE YOUR FRIENDS in late '83/early '84 or so and followed it up a few months later with a C90 called LOSE YOUR JOB. My punk exposure to that point was just Clash and Pistols, so these were totally mindblowing. A lot of my ballot will be pulled from these, with some additions. If I get hit by a bus before I finish a ballot, just use this as an unranked ballot -- I could do a lot worse.

LOSE YOUR FRIENDS
TV Party - Black Flag
Religious Wars - Subhumans
God Save The Queen - Sex Pistols
Lock It Up - Eater
Possibilities - Viletones
What Do I Get? - The Buzzcocks
Don't Push Me Around - The Zeros
Complete Control - The Clash
Holiday in Cambodia - Dead Kennedys
Everthing Turns Grey - Agent Orange
Right Time - The Crowd
Sheena Is a Punk Rocker - The Ramones
Let's Face It - 999
Praise The Lord & Pass The Ammunition - Impatient Youth
No Room For You - Demob
Someone's Gonna Die - Blitz
Soft Focus - TSOL
I Wanna Know Why - Channel 3
Immunity - U.X.A.
Burn 'em Down - Abrasive Wheels
Media Control - The Nuns
Live Or Die - Red Rockers

LOSE YOUR JOB
Repressed Aggression - Anti
Drastic Actions - Bad Religion
Sonic Reducer - Dead Boys
Too Drunk To Fuck - Dead Kennedys
Crimson - Rudi
Orgasm Addict - The Buzzcocks
In The City - The Jam
Your Generation - Generation X
Rebel - Viletones
Noise Noise Noise - The Damned
Death or Glory - The Clash
Then I Kicked Her - Lurkers
I Gotta Getta - The Undertones
Sick On You - The Boys
Priorities - Trash
You're Gonna Miss Me - DMZ
Blank Generation - Richard Hell & The Voivoids
(I'm) Stranded - Saints
I Wanna Be Me - Sex Pistols
Wolf - 999
Nervous Breakdown - Black Flag
Living In Darkness - Agent Orange
Slave To My Dick - The Subhumans
Razors in the night - Blitz
If Reagan Played disco - Minutemen
Gilligan's Island - Husker Du
Code Blue - TSOL
Kids of the Black Hole - Adolescents
Rise & Fall - Shattered Faith
Radio Moscow - Kent State
Mom's Wallet - Zero Boys
Sugar Sugar - The Germs
Sorority Girl - Accelerators
You Saw Me - U.X.A.

anything post-punk feels like it belongs in its own poll

OTMFM, posers GTFO (n.b. I love post-punk)

Sounds like the consensus is leaning towards using the nominations process for the 75-84 tracks, and that that has worked OK in the past for other genre polls. If we do a ballot of up to 50 selections it seems to me each person could nominate 15-20 items, does that sound right? If I could get a few suggestions on that front we shall begin making a nominations playlist / spreadsheet. Nominate for 2 weeks, then vote for a week, then roll out results.

What say you - nominate 15 tracks per person? 20?

fine with either tbh

I see some polls, such as the classic rock one, there was a starting slate of nominations just to hit some of the obvious ones. We could start with a few of the most famous punk compilations like say, the No Thanks box set, a couple of the Rhino DIY comps, a few of the Soul Jazz comps? I would omit things that clearly aren't punk like Love Will Tear Us Apart and Boys Don't Cry.

also WmC you have mentioned those tapes before and they are so cool, numerous tracks I still have not heard. Very little actual hardcore on those also, more of a 1980 vibe

Thanks! I compiled them into a Spotify list a few years ago -- https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1tJV5BPYdnstwRjb7tKzsg?si=0dbe2d9a710e49de

My 2 cents, if you are using a starting slate then 20 should work.

Hey all, I hate to say it, but I need to abandon this project before it's properly begun. A poll like this deserves a proper hype man to keep the contributions going and I can't in good conscience carve out a week in November to dedicate to the rollout. I've been avoiding my real life obligations using various forms of internet addiction and I need to take a complete break.

Also I think I'm a bit too disorganized and indecisive to run this poll properly anyway and can't ever make up my mind about things like genre constraints.

If anyone wants to pick up the baton feel free. Again, much sorry.